Director: Samuel Fuller    Starring: Lee Marvin, Mark Hamill, Robert Carradine, Siegfried Rauch

“This is fictional life based on factual death.” A stark mission statement from the outset for the 2004 “reconstructed” version of Samuel Fuller’s The Big Red One. Critic and filmmaker Richard Schickel’s painstaking project has reinstated (using the original shooting script as a guide) over forty minutes to the running time of this Second World War epic that follows the U.S. First Infantry Division from its first deployment in Algeria through to the end of the war.

Drawing on his own experiences (Fuller was a decorated member of the genuine Big Red One throughout the war) it follows a nameless Sergeant (Marvin) and his infantry squad as they try to survive the war by any means necessary. As their exploits unfold, four young Privates rapidly grow into battle hardened soldiers in the orbit of the Sarge and we follow these five men from their first step on the Algerian sand to their liberation of a Czechoslovakian concentration camp as the war was drawing to a close. Inbetween, they have to contend with the invasion of Sicily and the D-Day landings and all the carnage and chaos that went with them.

I have never seen the original version of the film but my immediate impression is that it must have been a pretty poor hatchet job compared to this. I can’t see forty minutes that you could remove without having a very negative impact on the film. Richard Schickel, I salute you for the job done overseeing this reconstruction job. Apart from one shot in a single scene where there is obvious, serious degradation to the film I couldn’t tell which scenes had been reconstructed from the vault materials and which were part of the original version of the film. This speaks volumes about the love and care that has clearly been invested in this project and it is an important project.

Unlike other Second World War epics (such as The Longest Day for example), The Big Red One has narrowed its scope down to a small group of individuals, not even a whole squad and tells their story rather than attempting to put everything into a grander context. Rather than being myopic, this allows the film to revel in the details of the experiences of these men rather than losing the individuals in the masses of the conflict. The Sergeant and his “Four Horsemen” as they become known to the rest of their squad seem to endure every ordeal out of sheer determination to survive. The closeness to Griff (Mark Hamill), Zab (Robert Carradine), Vinci (Bobby Di Cicco) and Johnson (Kelly Ward) means you become as invested in their survival as they are makes for a tense experience.

The performances from the main cast are superb. Marvin’s stoic Sergeant, a grizzled veteran of the First World War (when the Big Red One was formed) is obviously rooted in his own experiences as a Marine in the Pacific theatre. Calm and confident, even when pinned down in the hell of Omaha Beach his outward appearance belies the troubled man within. Hamill does an amazing job as the morally conflicted Griff, a man whose reluctance to take the life of another human being soon gives way under the basic need to survive. Carradine, Kelly and Di Cicco also do a great job of conveying the conflict between their friendly cameraderie and the brutality of being professional killers.

Brutality and savagery are very much at the heart of this film. There is no hiding the fact the Fuller lived this for real. There is no flag waving, twee sentimentality or misguided patriotism here. Stripped of the politics and global view the morality of the war (and warfare in general) is illustrated through snapshots from the unit’s viewpoint. Yes, the Nazi’s are portrayed as an evil enemy, but only insofar as their actual actions illustrate the point. The soldiers console themselves with semantic arguments to deal with their actions (“we don’t murder people, we kill them”). At times the film borders on the abstract, a stealthy liberation of an occupied Belgian monastery/lunatic asylum being a fine example, questioning the sanity not just of the soldiers but of the human race in general.

It’s a film steeped in authenticity and while it was clearly deeply personal to Fuller it is as accessible as any classic war film you are ever likely to see. Full of humanity and warmth, sometimes appearing in the most unlikely of corners in war torn Europe, I’d venture so far as to say it is one of the most impressive films about the Second World War I have ever seen, made all the more impressive by the knowledge that a lot of what transpires on screen actually happened. Perhaps the most impressive thing about it is the fact that Fuller clearly held out a glimmer of hope for the human race in spite of his tenure with the Big Red One, a hope that shines through in the film, despite the obvious and overwhelming horrors he must have faced. Truly excellent.

Repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell is vital to National Security

After blowing up my family and friends newsfeeds on Facebook and Twitter this morning while watching the US Senate on C-Span voting on cloture for both the DREAM Act (H.R. 5281) and Repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (H.R. 2965), I received a message from a family member on Facebook asking me what the big deal is about this bill to repeal DADT. The essence of the message was this:

Why does it matter to the government or anyone else, if you can perform the duties then so what??? Why is the government making such a big deal about this, since nobody ever cared before, why do we care now, thats the part I’m confused about.

I am not posting this to call anyone out but to make a point that the passage of this bill is vitally important not only to national security but also to the lives of patriotic Americans who have been unjustly marginalized by the U.S. Government and the Military because of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. This is a legitimate question that I am sure many have, one that needs to be respected, and answered without prejudice. What follows in my response to the message I received on Facebook this morning….

What is the big deal about Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (US Code Title 10 Subtitle A Part II Chapter 37 )? First, it is a legal form of discrimination that was passed by Congress and signed into law by President Clinton in 1993. Since 1993 more than 14,000+ capable and patriotic men and women have been discharged as a result of this law – myself included. Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell has failed to live up to its intended goal of serving the best interests of the military while respecting the privacy and dignity of its gay Servicemembers. It is a law that has been consistently mis-understood and abused and has ended otherwise remarkable careers of tens of thousands of patriotic Americans who only wish to serve their country.

Second, Congress has the power to repeal this discriminatory law and allow all citizens regardless of sexual orientation to serve with honor and integrity. In fact the majority of Americans agree that this law needs to be repealed – nearly 80%. True – gays and lesbians have served in the United States Armed Forces since the Revolutionary War but always at risk of being “found out” and then “kicked out” based in their sexual orientation.

Below is my story that was published as part of a project sponsored by The Human Rights Campaign and Servicemembers Legal Defense Network called “Documenting Courage“:

William Smith
Sergeant, United States Army and Army Reserves (1989-1997)

Veteran of:
Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm

Recipient of:
Bronze Star Medal, Army Achievement Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Southwest Asia Service Medal w/ 3 Bronze Stars, Kuwait Liberation Medal (Saudi Arabia), Kuwait Liberation Medal (Kuwait)

Story:
I have been and will always be an American soldier. Despite the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, I have served my country well, with honor, pride, and integrity. When I enlisted for military service near the end of my junior year of high school, I did so because of my sense of pride and duty to my country. Back then I was not concerned about whether I was gay or straight, I just knew I wanted to be a part of the military.

I did my basic training at Ft. Dix, New Jersey. I loved it! Don’t get me wrong, it was tough. There were several times I wondered what the hell I had gotten myself into. In the end, I made some really great friends, learned valuable skills, and enjoyed the discipline demanded of us by the drill instructors. I also learned about the Soldier’s Creed and the Army’s core values. I learned that without those close connections, skills, discipline, and values, you could not accomplish the mission.

Following basic, I was off to Ft. Huachuca, Arizona to learn my MOS – 96B (intelligence analyst). After successfully learning the new skills required of me, I was assigned to the famed 1st Infantry Division – the Big Red One (BRO) at Ft. Riley, Kansas. Furthermore, I was assigned to one of the oldest units in the Army: Headquarters & Headquarters Battery, 1st Battalion, 5th Field Artillery Regiment – Hamilton’s Own. I loved my job, loved the training, loved the morning runs singing cadence, and I loved being part of a great tradition.

All the training became a reality one November day in 1990, when the BRO was called to duty as part of Operation Desert Shield. My unit deployed to Saudi Arabia at the end of December 1990 and returned to Ft. Riley at the end of May 1991. During the time in the desert, we trained, we moved frequently, and fought fearlessly during the ground war. I will never forget my experience during Desert Shield and Storm, or the soldiers I fought with. I was awarded the Bronze Star for my service during Desert Storm.

A year after returning from the Persian Gulf, I decided to take advantage of an early out of the Army. During that year I came out to my mother and sister and some friends in the Army. The decision to leave active duty was a difficult one for me to make because of my strong sense of duty and pride. I received an Honorable Discharge in June 1992 and enlisted in the Army Reserve in October 1992.

I remained in the Reserve until December 1997, when I decided the time had come for me to ‘tell’. At that time, I had applied to become an Army Reserve Recruiter, and during the application process, I came to realize that I would have to uphold “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” and deny prospective recruits the opportunity to serve. I also realized that I would have to further deny who I am while in a full-time role as a recruiter. I decided I could not, with integrity, do it.

With the assistance of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN), I drafted a letter to my commander expressing my disagreement with the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy and explaining that I could no longer serve with integrity because of the policy. I was asked more than once to take my letter back and that all would be forgotten. Doing so would have gone against everything the Army taught me about integrity.

It is time to end this flawed policy and allow those who wish to serve in the military the opportunity to do so, regardless of their sexual orientation. Being gay never interfered with my ability to do my job. I would love to continue my service to my country, but only with integrity, honor and pride. I served my country with honor; I wish my country, in turn, would honor all of its service members – gay and straight.

Hope this helps to bring some clarity to why this is such an important bill to pass.

Since it’s release, I’ve had no less than 5 people tell me to by Call of Duty: Black Ops, usually because quote:

“Trust me, you’ll like it.”

That’s 5 different people inside of what, a week?

Now it should be noted that most of these people are not exactly close friends of mine, and are thusly unaware of how cheap/Azn/stingy I am when it comes to purchasing games, particularly at full retail price.

I suppose it also helps that I have a distinct phobia of register clerks, which makes the purchasing process all the more difficult.

We’ll get into that some other time…

Anyway, while I have yet to buy into the hype and pick myself up a copy of Black Ops, today I was fortunate to have the game quite literally brought to my door by my Krn buddy from up the street.

While both of us are veterans of the Call of Duty series, spanning all the way to the original title; my friend has been playing them online on his PS3 quite consistently in the past few years, making him a far more experienced player than myself.

I sort of dropped out of the series after Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.

I had it for the PC, and really enjoyed it for the most part, however I never played it online; and rarely caught myself missing it when I had to format my PC.

That being said, I would never consider any game in the Call of Duty series to be anything less than excellent.

Well, except maybe Call of Duty 3… And maybe Big Red One.

Anyway, what I’m trying to say here, is that I’ve played COD, and I like COD, so don’t get butt hurt if it sounds like I’m being mean to your precious COD.

That being said, here’s my first impression of Black Ops after about 2-3 hours of online split screen play with my friend:

Black Ops makes me feel like an old man.

An old man with poor eyesight and shitty reflexes.

In short, like any online COD experience, the game is an insanely fast-paced rollercoaster ride of half second moments of awesome, followed by equally miniscule (yet all too frequent) moments of fail and butt hurt.

You run around, you shoot at things that move/have evil red words hanging over their head, and you die.

A LOT.

And yet, this unbelievably troglodytic cycle of mayhem and Red Bull fueled chaos somehow equates to something fun.

This is coming from somehow who’s probably played 10 hours of COD over the past 5 years, and just played Black Ops for the first time today.

What I mean to say is:

From what I can tell, I sucked pretty epicly at Black Ops my first time out.

My kill-death ratio was in the neighborhood of .70-.80, while my buddy’s was 2.0 even.

As mentioned above, the online component of Black Ops has an interesting (well, at least to me it’s interesting…) flow to it.

For a FPS newb such as myself, the game felt alarmingly fast, as if everything in the game world, my character included, was moving just a half beat quicker than I was ready for.

Then again, I’ve been playing Demon’s Souls and Metal Gear Solid 4 for the past several weeks, so by comparison; just about anything would seem fast…

Being a newb really hurt me in Black Ops.

At times, I found myself getting killed quite rapidly, to the point where it felt downright embarrassing.

Despite this, to it’s credit, Black Ops, like any COD game I’d imagine, manages to counter this quite well with it’s quick pacing.

In short, you simply aren’t given enough time to feel shitty about anything in the game, ’cause in most cases you’ll be back in the fight in no time anyway.

That being said, it should be noted that I felt myself “going numb” at times.

That is to say, I would kill and die, (mostly die) and do something cool every now and again, but everything came so clustered together, that I would just stop caring after awhile.

When you don’t care whether you live or die in a game, that either means that the stakes of the game aren’t all that important, the actual gameplay experience isn’t as meaningful as one would hope, or the player is someone that truly doesn’t give a fuck.

I was somewhere between the first and the last portions of the above statement, however I’d imagine it would really ruin someone’s day to find that their feelings coincide with the second.

Make no mistake, playing COD online is a very different beast from playing something like Demon’s Souls that severely punishes failure.

It’s an instant gratification game that punishes and rewards by inches, with all the worthwhile rewards only coming as a result of logging a great deal of playtime hours.

Personally, I prefer my games to have tangible stakes tied to my performance, however this is simply a case of personal preference.

Regardless, I died all the time when I was playing Black Ops, and while that pissed me off from time to time, particularly when I was getting my ass handed to me mere seconds after respawning, I’d usually forget about it once I got my legs back under me and scored a kill or 2.

In a sense, playing COD online is a strangely bipolar experience, with pleasurable and frustrated emotions coming and going as rapidly as they can manifest.

And they say A.D.D. isn’t a problem among the current generation…

From a features standpoint, while I can’t really compare it to the previous COD games all that much, I have to say, it seems like Black Ops has a lot going for it.

The equipment and perk customization is back, largely unchanged from it’s previous iterations.

The map selection is well varied, and seems adequate in quantity, with a number of the maps being tailor made for the Ground War mode in the sense that close-quarters engagements are almost a guarantee.

The Nazi Zombie mode from World At War is back, and seems to be a little more forgiving than it’s previous iteration.

That is to say, the weapons are more effective for the most part, and the initial map is far more spacious, lending the player a great deal more survivability due to their ability to turn tail and run if need be.

Outside of that though, Nazi Zombies feels largely the same, albeit with a lighter tone, a few campy power ups, and a more frantic pace.

Anyway, I only played Black Ops for a few hours, but those are my thoughts.

It seems like a pretty good game, though my lack of skill, combined with my recently adopted positive stance towards “deeper” gameplay experiences, leads me to believe that I probably won’t be buying another COD game anytime soon.

Sorry peoples that told me to by Black Ops, while I did indeed “like it,” I think I’m gonna’ hang onto my $60 for now.

Approaching Omaha Beach, June 1944

When I interview a vet, I find it helpful to take along maps and photos to jog the memory. Over the years I’ve amassed a good-sized library* of material on the Normandy invasion. This year,my interview is with a man who had been with the 1st Infantry Division, called the “Big Red One.” He was in the 26th Infantry Regiment, which was held in reserve and didn’t hit Omaha Beach until late afternoon; the two other regiments of the “Big Red One” hit the beach earlier in the day. While leafing through my copy of Stephen E. Ambrose’s D-Day, June 6, 1944 I found a map of the position of my vet’s battalion on Omaha Beach on the evening of  June 6th. I showed him that page. Sure enough, it jogged his memory.

It wasn’t until I had Ambrose’s book back home that I remembered where I had gotten it. For my D-Day anniversary story five years ago in The Morning Call, I interviewed 1st Infantry Division vet Harold Saylor of North Catasauqua, Pennsylvania, who hit Omaha Beach in a hail of German gunfire at 7:30 a.m. carrying a pair of Bangalore torpedoes, long metal pipes packed with high explosive and used for blowing up barbed-wire entanglements.

Always eager to see me, Harold would have scraps of paper for me with notes of some detail he wanted to make sure I knew. One, giving an idea of how much he was weighed down when he went ashore, was typed out: “170 pounds of equipment, including the clothing.” Another typed-out note to me read: “I could not swim either, and to this day I still cannot swim.” One day when I arrived, he handed me seven pages that he’d scrawled brief notes on. “I talked to Ernie Pyle,” he’d written on the first page, referring to the famous war correspondent.

In his small home office crowded with books,  files and photo albums, Harold knew where everything was. Sometimes he would shake his head and say that he didn’t know what would become of this stuff when he was gone.

His story ran on June 6, 2005, under a headline that was a quote from him: “On the beach, there was no place to hide.” An e-mail I got from a reader said: “I’m at my desk at work and crying my eyes out.”

American Casualty, Omaha Beach, June 1944

In the months after Harold’s story ran, his health declined. The last time I saw him, he was in a hospital bed in his living room and didn’t seem to know who I was. I rested my hand on his and our eyes met. He died a few weeks later, at age 81, before another D-Day anniversary came.

One day his widow, Anna, called and asked me to come over. Harold had left something for me, she said. It was Ambrose’s account of D-Day. She said Harold wanted me to have it, as well as any other of his books I’d like to have.

Perhaps he hadn’t recognized me in the end, but he did remember me.

On Sunday, June 6, my newest D-Day interview will be in the newspaper and I’ll be going to the annual picnic held in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, by the Lehigh Valley Chapter of the Veterans of the Battle of the Bulge to honor D-Day veterans. I’ll be bringing 90-year-old Dan Curatola, one of Harold’s fellow infantrymen in the 1st Infantry Division’s 16th Infantry Regiment who also hit Omaha Beach that day 66 years ago. And I will think of Harold again.

*Venditta’s Pick of D-Day Photograph Albums

Time-Life editors. THE SECOND FRONT, Time-Life Books World War II  39-book series

Life commemorative edition by Richard Holmes. D-DAY EXPERIENCE, a photo-filled magazine to mark D-Day’s 60th anniversary, 2006

Time special issue, D-DAY: WHY IT MATTERS 60 YEARS LATER, 2006

National Geographic’s issue, “Untold Stories of D-Day,” 2002 which has the most detailed map of the invasion beaches I’ve ever seen

American Heritage‘s  issue “D-Day: What It Took, What It Meant, What it Cost.”1994

Normandy Invasion, June 1944

Saw all or parts of several classic war flicks yesterday and today. AMC was running a marathon. My thumbnail reviews:

Kelly’s Heroes. Four Stars. Uniforms and equipment are excellent. The Tiger Tank is awesome and the Sherman’s aren’t bad! Also, I love anything with Jack Bauer in it!

Big Red One. Three Stars. I think it tries too hard to be serious and artsy. Lee Marvin is too moody and the squad is too cute.

To Hell and Back. Two Stars. It looks like it was made in a training area (which is was) and just doesn’t have that “real” feel. You would think Audie would have said something to the effect of “This isn’t what it looked like!”  Murphey’s story is truly inspiring –the movie just doesn’t do it justice.

The Enemy Below. Four Stars. Good drama… one of first good movies of the German view.

Mr. Roberts. Four Stars. The best movie about the critical but sometimes dull job of strategic logistics. The acting (Fonda, Lemon, Cagney) is superior.

Heartbreak Ridge. One Star. I didn’t like it when it came out and it gets worse with age. I doubt its possible to make a decent about the invasion of Grenada.

Courage under Fire. Three Stars. A little hokey on the story but Denzel Washington is excellent and looks for all the world like a half dozen different armored cavalry colonels I’ve known. The night tank battle was nicely done.

Pride of the Marines. Four Stars. The true story of Marine Al Schmid who was blinded while winning the Navy Cross on Guadalcanal. A classic about why we have memorial day and why being a soldier, sailor, airman, or marine is not just another job. Reminds us all why today’s Wounded Warrior program is so important.

Followed by a concert hosted by Keni Thomas, a Army veteran, and capped off with an amazing fireworks display.

Welcome home! and thank you for letting me be apart of your homecoming ceremony!

First kiss!

*The photos and other content of this publication do not imply any endorsement or recommendation by the Department of Defense.*

19) Gallipoli- (79-100)- This is an excellent movie about the abortive British invasion of Turkey during WWI.  It is probably the best movie set in WWI, and though the importance of the battle can be called into question, it is an excellent depiction of the true waste of life that was characteristic of armies during the First World War.

18) God’s and Generals- (80/100)- This prequel to Gettysburg follows the battle career of Stonewall Jackson.  It is not nearly as great a film as Gettysburg, but has some of the best Civil War battle sequences that can be found in film.

17) El Cid- (81/100)- This is another epic made in the 1960s.  It stars Charlton Heston, and recounts the story of a Spaniard, Rodrigo Diaz (El Cid) who succeeded in driving the Moors out of Spain and changing the destiny of Europe.  There are some good battle scenes, and in the end, El Cid, who is dead by this time, is tied to his horse and leads his army to victory.

16) Battle of the Bulge- (81/100)- This fictionalized presentation of one of the most famous battles of WWII would have scored higher if it had stayed truer to history.  It has good acting and battle scenes, but the terrain often does not look like a heavy forest, and there is a distinct lack of snow.  Also, the lack of a mention of Patton in the movie is regrettable.  He should have gotten a little credit.  That being said, it is a very watchable war movie.

15) The Thin Red Line- (81/100)- This movie seems like a compilation of vignettes each of which is extremely well acted.  The battle scenes are also very good.  That being said, the editing and final composition of the movie is very much a hodgepodge.  Also, the artistic sequences are terrible.

14) Kingdom of Heaven- (81/100)-  Kingdom of Heaven is a refreshing fictionalized account of the Crusades.  The battles and siege warfare found in this film are superb.  It is also refreshing to find a movie about the Crusades that it fair to all sides.  Neither Christianity nor Islam is the bad guy in this film.  There are both good and bad people on each side, and unfortunately, as in real life there are often more bad people than good.  This movie would have been better received if it had not been released at the height of anger toward the Iraq war.

13) Band of Brothers- (81-100)- HBO’s presentation of Stephen Ambrose’s books could have been done better.  It was clear that producers Tom Hanks and Stephen Spielberg were most concerned with conveying the every day lives (and deaths) of the soldiers of Easy Company of the 101^st Airborne as they moved across Europe during WWII.  It seemed a little tedious at times, but it would be hard to compete with I terms of conveying the experience of WWII frontline soldiers.  Of course, most movies do not have 10 hours plus to play with.

12) The Big Red One- (87/100)- The plot of this movie follows Lee Marvin’s character, the Sergeant from the end of WWI through the end of WWII.  It centers on his platoon as they move from battle to battle.  It also shows many of the issues faced by front line soldiers during WWII.

11) Black Hawk Down- (87/100)- It is hard to find fault with this as a war movie, but it is not for the faint of heart.  It is easily the best war movie set in a time after Vietnam.  I was not thrilled with the score, and the actual event pales in comparison to battles such as Midway, but these are minor criticisms.  I recommend watching the documentary, The Real Story of Black Hawk Down to see how accurate the movie really is.

Top 50 War Movies Criteria

Top 50 War Movies 10-1

Top 50 War Movies 20-11

Top 50 War Movies 30-21

Top 50 War Movies 40-31

Top 50 War Movies 45-41

Lists

Niestety TVcztery nie powraca na stałe do tradycji puszczania filmów kung-fu w soboty, więc musiałem sam sobie puścić:

Ku memu zaskoczeniu puścili jednak Jing cha gu shi w niedzielę.

This special collector’s commemorative edition has been issued in honor of the June 6, 1944 Allied invasion of France, which marked the beginning of the end of Nazi domination over Europe. The attack involved 3,000,000 men, 11,000 planes and 4,000 ships, comprising the largest armada the world has ever seen.

The Longest Day is a vivid, hour-by-hour recreation of this historic event. Featuring a stellar international cast, and told from the perspectives of both sides, it is a fascinating look at the massive preparations, mistakes, and random events that determined the outcome of one of the biggest battles in history. Winner of two 1962 Oscars� (Special Effects and Cinematography), The Longest Day ranks as one of Hollywood’s truly great war films.

After seeing Saving Private Ryan, this epic tale about the Normandy invasion will look sanitized. But in its re-creation of events leading to the epochal battle, the film is captivating and grand, and the parade of famous actors who cross the screen naturally give the already charged action even more of a boost. Three directors worked on it: Ken Annakin (Battle of the Bulge), Andrew Marton (Crack in the World), and Bernhard Wicki (this film being his only credit). –Tom Keogh

The Longest Day (Two-Disc Collector’s Edition) is available at Amazon for $14.99. To Order click here
Amazon Product Pages contain a lot of other details on this product as Customer Reviews, Sales Ranking, Special Offers, Alternate products that customers are going for and much more.Want to read these details? click here

Want to get some other Format / Binding / Version? You can search for them from here

Other Products of Interest

• Patton (Two-Disc Collector’s Edition)
• A Bridge Too Far
• Midway (Collector’s Edition)
• Battle of the Bulge
• Tora! Tora! Tora! (Two-Disc Collector’s Edition)

The distinctive “Big Red One” insignia and colors of the 1st Infantry Division are part of an Army-inspired clothing line being rolled out this year for the department store.The Army licensed the 1st ID insignia to All American Apparel in June 2007, according to Army spokesman Paul Boyce. Under the licensing agreement, the Army will receive royalties on any profits beginning in 2009.

Surprisingly, this has not been that well received by current and former service members. From Stars & Stripes:

“Unless someone’s related somehow [to a unit], they shouldn’t wear it,” said Pvt. Chris Latona, 19, of the 173rd Airborne Brigade’s Special Troops Battalion out of Bamberg, Germany. “It’s not like a sports team.”

From SSG Big Brother CollateralDamage: “I think this is reprehensible … we should sell advertising space on tanks, gunships, Hell sponsor patches on individual soldiers’ uniforms.”

Sears, to its credit, has responded to concerns from the Society of the 1st Infantry Division about this. Also the fact that the company is offering to pay for the use of the insignia is almost unheard of (any royalties the Army gets will go to programs for troops and military families). Many companies use military insignia in their products — from movies to clothes to games — without offering recompense, such as Activision which put the division’s name intoCall of Duty 2: Big Red One, a game set during WW II.

Although I don’t see any harm in Sears doing this, I would defer to vets and service members on the topic. FWIW, a few years ago I purchased a patch of the 442nd Regimental Combat Team at The Japanese American National Museum to show my admiration. If you are not familiar with the 442, a thumbnail:

[It was] an Asian American unit composed of mostly Japanese Americans who fought in Europe during the Second World War. The families of many of its soldiers were subject to internment. The 442nd was a self-sufficient fighting force, and fought with uncommon distinction in Italy, southern France, and Germany. The unit became the most highly decorated military unit in the history of the United States Armed Forces, including 21 Medal of Honor recipients, earning the nickname “The Purple Heart Battalion.”

Man, not a single snarky comment. Wow. I must be getting soft.

This is an interesting turn of events.  As a child, I can remember some controversy over surplus Army field jackets being worn by civilians, with the patches still on them.  Many in the military will not like this new approach to turning their service insignia into a merchandising brand.  On the other hand, in this new age of an all-volunteer force (of which I was a part for a time), the military must look for ways to promote itself in the youth culture from which it draws its recruits.

Personally, I don’t really care if they put the logo on merchandise or not.  From Saving Private Ryan, to Band of Brothers, and other movies, video games, etc., Hollywood has been cashing in on military history quite a bit.  Why shouldn’t the military be able to do the same?  Having said that, some of the bingo players at the VFW might not like it.  The rank and file troops who were not told this was coming will be caught off guard also.  In our brand identity obsessed culture, it was bound to happen sooner or later.

See the story at Politico: Army, Sears clothing deal irks lawmakers

and Military.com Sears to Sell Army-Approved Clothing

Allons enfants de la patrie!
Les jours de gloire sont arrivés!

(Children of the Nation!
The Days of Glory are upon us!)

Another Film Review (this one not of a 51 year old film)

1.
Thus begins the French national anthem, La Marseillese, to my mind, one of the most stirring, militant songs ever written. If sung to the end it is far more radical than the Communist Internationale which pales in comparison. I sing it rather regularly in the shower along with another French song, `Le Deserteur’, by Boris Vian. Judy Collins and Peter, Paul and Mary have sung renditions of the latter in not-too-bad French

`Days of Glory’ is the English title of a film for what the French call simply `Indigène’ (The Natives). The English translation plays upon double meaning of the title. On the one hand, it refers to the song itself – a hymn to popular uprising, to the dissolution of monarchy (and more generally oppressive government, to `liberty, equality and fraternity’ – the promises of the French Revolution for a more democratic and prosperous life for all. On the other hand, La Marseillese can also simply mean – the woman from Marseilles.

I’ll come back to these themes later – as both of them run through the heart of the film

2.
A few months back in Denver’s cold 2007 Spring I sat in a near empty theater on Colorado Blvd watching a film that took my breath away, Days of Glory. It was just as well the theater was empty save 3 other people and myself. Through most of it, tears – not my normal trademark – just rolled down my cheeks. The film came and went hardly making a dent in the public conscience.

Although I generally avoid war films with their increasingly gratuitous violence, this one was different, reminding me that war stories well told can be among the more stirring insights into the human spirit. The great ones are just that: Samuel Fuller’s The Big Red One, Jean Renoir’s The Grand Illusion, Gallipoli (the first and last good film Mel Gibson ever made) and Erich Maria Remarque’s extraordinary All is Quiet on the Western Front. And then there is the greatest of them all: Shohei Imamura’s Black Rain (not the one with Michael Douglas). All of these films are what might be considered `anti-war’ war films, all about more than war with insights, most of them accurate and depressing, about the human condition and the modern world. Days of Glory, a heart-wrenching and beautiful film, is every bit as good as these classics and hopefully some day will be appreciated as such.

For Americans the subject is both familiar and obscure. `Obscure’ because it is about Algerian Berbers who volunteer to fight in the Free French Army of General de Gaulle in World War II That Algerians fought and died to liberate France from Nazism is not common knowledge here in the land of the brave and the free and the world’s No.1 arms merchant, nor is the fact that almost immediately after that conflagration ended, in 1945, at a place called Setif, in Eastern Algeria, those same French turned on Algerian demonstrators and nationalists with a vengeance, killing as many as 35,000 of them (the numbers are contested by both sides) and shattering for ever any illusion that Algerians could be integrated into French society as equals and that Algeria would continue much longer to be a part of France.

It took another seventeen mostly horrific and bloody years before the final split came but more and more, scholars and commentators are concluding that the turning point was the Setif events after which the talk of reconciliation had, for all practical purposes collapsed. Not even that great humanist, Albert Camus could put the old Algeria back together again. It was perhaps the frustration of that failure that motivated Camus one day to drive his sports car into a tree at 110 miles an hour. The middle has collapsed. There was no room for moderates anymore.

`Familiar’ because the struggle portrayed in this movie, the great effort made by Algerian soldiers in the French army to defeat fascism, and in consequence to take their place as full fledged citizens with equal rights to Frenchmen…you know that stuff about liberty, equality and fraternity bears a rather powerful resemblance to Blacks fighting in the American military at the same time for the same causes: defeating fascism and attaining genuine equality within the social fabric of the US of A. Same struggle different front…and quite different result actually.

The fact that soon after the events portrayed in Days of Glory ended, the French colonial adventure in Algeria enters its death throws castes a powerful, eery aura over the film itself. This is tragedy: moving, poignant human tragedy, a tale – true in virtually all the themes and details – of hope pulverized, of the human spirit seeking dignity and justice for all..and finding death instead. In its own way this film explains to the largely French audience that will see it (it is available from Netflix by the way with subtitles), why the director, Bouchareb, thinks the Algerians had no choice but to rebel when the war ended.

A few good friends of mine still think that Algerians had other options. While I can’t contradict them for certain – in the end we’ll never know – I seriously doubt that. On reflection, the film is nothing other than a polemic – an explanation to those French who still don’t get it: This is why we Algerianas HAD to rebell. You gave us no choice. You closed every door we tried to open, crushed every initiative in blood and gore, and shattered any hope of reconciliation and then asked US to be patient and democratic like you are.

(Israel’s more zealous supporters would do well to watch the film carefully and reflect upon it. And I have read and heard that many Israeli think tanks, scholars and politicians do take an unusually pronounced interest in Algerian history as well they should. If the social chemistry involved varies to a certain degree from the Israeli-Palestinian issue, still the parallels are there for any but the blind and those reluctant to study history.)

Days of Glory becomes then, an autopsy, a psychological and sociological autopsy on the failure of French policy in Algeria. It gives a fine insight into just how complete, how total was the gulf between French and Algerians, the unbridgeable gap that could only lead to separation and the orgy of violence that followed. Even when the French and Algerians are fighting in principle on the same side, each has his own version of what the battle is about. For the French it is about defeating fascism to reconstruct France’s already historically obsolete colonial empire, one of the pearls of which was Algeria. For the Algerians, it was about defeating fascism as a first step toward Algerian independence from France. Once the war ended, the scenarios would almost inevitably clash.

3.
`We’ve come from afar to die
We’re the men from Africa’
(song sung by Algerian/Malian/Senegalese soldiers early in the movie)

And die they did by the hundreds of thousands if not more in both world wars of the 20th Century `for France’. As the film accurately portrays it, the Algerians were used as cannon fodder and thrown into the harshest battles in the front lines to conserve French lives. The French were by no means unique in utilizing colonial manpower in this fashion. In the First World War, the British threw wave after wave of Australian and New Zealander units up the steep cliffs of Gallipoli to be slaughtered by the Turks. During World War II, not willing to send British troops to scale the cliffs near Dieppe to test Nazi defenses for a possible invasion of France in 1943, Lord Montbatten cavalierly sent several thousand Canadians to do the job. They were picked off like flies by Nazi machine gunners sitting comfortably atop the cliffs probably sipping French wine and nibbling on French cheese it was so easy. The British might have forgotten Dieppe, but to this day it’s still an issue in Canada, the investigation has been covered up and chances are that if you are Canadian and in Dieppe, you’ll drink at local bars for free, for the locals remember the carnage.

So what were these Algerians fighting for in World War II? If it is true that some Arabs supported the Nazis (Sadat did, so did some Iraqi officers and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem had some limited contacts, Gandhi refused to take sides), Arabs in droves volunteered simply to fight fascism. It was not `love of France’ that propelled them as much as it was the simple and profound understanding that for however how awful was French colonialism (it is not romanticized in the least in the movie), that Nazism was worse. The Nazis of course, tried to play on the French colonial record to woe Algerians to their side. As the film suggests, this didn’t work most of the time.

One of the many historic distortions of this period current today is to play up the nazi-Arab connections while ignoring or downplaying the major trend – that Algerian Arabs and Berbers, Moslems almost overwhelmingly, fought against Nazism with the same values as my Jewish father and uncles did: to oppose injustice.

No doubt, they also fought for their vested interests. Throughout the colonial world, colonized people negotiated deals with the French and British which went more or less along the same lines: we’ll (the colonized) will fight the Nazis (and the Japanese) with you but in exchange, when the war ends, you (the French, British) must grant us independence. Sometimes the deals were open, other times suggested. Some time the promises were kept, mostly they were broken. After the war was over, the French used (willing) Japanese p.o.w. troops still stationed in Vietnam to put down Ho Chi Minh’s first post war independence movement. The British reneged on most of their promises to the Arabs for independence made during BOTH World Wars i and II, but kept their pledge to the Jewish troops in Palestine fighting under their command to facilitate Israeli independence. Any illusions that Algerian support for France in the war would lead to Algerian independence already evaporated before the month of May, 1945 was out with the events at Setif, described above.

The human element of this film gravitates around the lives of four companeros, Said, Yasser, Messaoud, and Abdel Khader, all Berbers. They are not idealized, but human in both attributes and faults. These four interact with a fifth – Martinez – a pied noir (French Algerian) sergeant, whose name (like Camus’) hints at Spanish, not French heritage. While Martinez does lobby for his Algerian underlings to his French superiors, he keeps up a public front of condescension and social distance, feeling particularly threatened when, at different moments and in different ways either Said, his aide de camp or Abdel Khader, probe those boundaries, these Algerians find out just how iron-clad they remain.

Each of the four protaganists is complex and tragic in their own ways. Said, knows his place and has no aspiration for assimilation or `moving up. When asked from where it is he hails, Said answers simply and accurately `from total poverty’. Yasser enters the war for booty pure and simple and admits as much. But while war de-humanizes many, it seems to have the opposite effect upon him. Ironically enough a part of Said’s `re-humanization’ process takes place in a church where he breaks through to the humanity of the French by seeing Christ suffering on the cross and comparing it to his own. He comments to his brother `Their [the French] god suffered a lot’. His brother, as if to justify his desire to steal from the church responds with `Tell me what the French called the campaign to exterminate our family? to which Said answers, accurately – `pacification.’

The drama of Messaoud, the sharpshooter who has pas de chance (= bad luck) tattooed upon his chest, centers around his love affair with a French girl from Marseilles (thus La Marseillese), Irene, given her name, a symbolic love affair with France itself. Theirs is a great, unlimited love affair in which if anything, Messaoud is more cautious about letting his emotions go than is Irene. The message Bouchareb is conveying – if left to themselves on a popular level, French and Algerians would find the ways to connect to each other, that France at its grass roots is not inherently racist, and Algerians for all their Moslem upbringing are not adverse to pursuing human relations with France and its people. But precisely they are not left to themselves, the `system’ intervenes in the form of the military censor that destroys Messaoud’s letters to Irene and lies to her about his whereabouts.

Abdel Khader – whose name is perhaps lost on American movie goers but would ring a bell with any Algerian watching the movie – represents the complexity of those Algerians earnestly exploring the assimilationist possibility. Can an Algerian rise as a result of his performance within the French military: the film’s message, apparently not. He is the articulate one, the agitator, if not a pacifist, the Martin Luther King Jr figure of sorts, demanding equality and challenging the old order at the same time he is trying to rise within it. He bears the name of one of the great, if not the greatest, Algerian leaders resisting French colonialism, a kind of Algerian Geronimo or Sitting Bull, who in Abdel Khader’s case fought the French for decades inflicting upon them defeat after defeat until finally the latter adapted a scorched earth policy to weaken native resistance, which finally collapsed. The name could not have been accidentally chosen.

The end is not pretty. Three of the four `die for France’ in the Vosgues; Abdel Khader survives, only to be denied benefits by the French government because he was not a French national. Final irony: it is said that after seeing Days of Glory, French President Jacques Chirac tried to reverse this policy and to grant benefits to those Algerian veterans of the French military still alive. But to date, not one of them have received a penny.

” World War I

The United States entered World War I almost completely unprepared: the National Defense Act which Congress had passed in 1916 had provided the basis of a mobilization plan, not an actual army. In early 1917 the country had only 210,000 men under arms, a third of them National Guardsmen who had been called up the previous summer to serve on the Mexican border. The Army had no permanent tactical organization above the level of the regiment and lacked adequate quantities of artillery, machine guns, tanks, modern aircraft, and even gas masks. Its General Staff organization was not designed to cope with the logistical and operational problems presented by a major conflict, and at the direction of the Wilson administration it had made no war plans. The Army had no intelligence organization.

Within seventeen months, however, the country had transformed itself into a fighting machine. With the help of the draft, the United States raised an Army of 4 million men; half of this great force was transported to France, where it provided the decisive margin that led to victory over Imperial Germany and its allies.”

American Expeditionary Force

“By June 1917, there were 14,000 US soldiers in France and by May of the next year there were one million American troops. “

What was different was a sense of urgency, will, and a nation that believed in its own survival and victory as morally right. With those, its easy to train 500,000 or 1 million troops in 12 months. We were doing it over 2 million a year in WWII with half the population.

We can train an army to finish up the Middle East and Central Asia and win before Bush leaves office. The time from April 6. 1917, US Congress Declared War on Germany to Nov 11, 1917, Victory was 19 months. They don’t teach those dates in leftist universities.

re Thomas Holsinger on “The Case for Invading Iran”

Posted by: Old Atlantic at January 31, 2007 05:31 PM

“

Iran role seen in attack on US troops. at Jihad Watch

Big Red One . org Society of the First Infantry Division 1919

First ID

http://www.1id.army.mil/1ID/History/History.htm

http://www.rainbowvets.org/

RAINBOW DIVISION — WORLD WAR I

The 42nd Rainbow Division was formed in August 1917 of National Guard units from 26 states and the District of Columbia. After Chief of Staff Major Douglas MacArthur remarked that the Division “would stretch over the whole country like a rainbow,” the coalesced national guard units were christened Rainbow Division. As the war progressed Douglas MacArthur was promoted to commander of the 84th Brigade and finally to commander of the Rainbow Division. Its four infantry regiments were respectively 165th (formerly New York’s 69th); 166th (formerly Ohio’s 4th); 167th (formerly Alabama’s 4th); and 168th (formerly Iowa’s 3rd). The field artillery, machine gun, ambulance, hospital, and other units originated in other states from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

The Division saw its first action in February 1918 fighting alongside the French. The battles continued throughout the following months and on July 14, 1918 the final German offensive was contained by the 4th French Army, in which the Rainbow Division played a prominent role at the famous Battle of the Champagne. Many bloody battles and great victories followed until the Germans were finally defeated. Battles included those in the Chateau-Thierry salient where Rainbow’s poet, Joyce Kilmer was killed; St. Mihiel; Verdun front and Argonne, where Rainbowmen engaged in the final battle of WW I. German occupation duty followed.

“Increasing the size of the Marine Corps, he added, could be done only by 1,000 to 2,000 troops per year over an extended period.”

General Peter Pace. Guess he never read about General Douglas MacArthur in World War I.

“Marine Corps May Need to Grow, General Says”